Is there any such thing as abusing a easement across my property?

[Larry Caldwell]

As others have mentioned, the B&B owner is responsible for the damage to your driveway caused by renters. You might call him and ask if he wants to perform the maintenance himself on the whole road, or have you do it and send him the bill. If it's a B&B, who is making breakfast for the tenants? If it's a short term rental, he's running a motel, and those are often regulated and inspected, depending on your jurisdiction. It's your money, but I doubt it will be worth the cost to hire an attorney. The local lawyer referral service will normally give you a half hour consult for $25 or so. Beyond that, you may want to do your own research and just use small claims court to recover any damages.

 

[4570Man]

Instead of first thing hiring attorney or getting some government agency involved why don’t you try talking to the guy. I know that if one of my neighbors approached me with a reasonable complaint I’d be willing to negotiate a peaceful solution within reason. If their first response was doing some of the above suggests you better hope you win because you can forget about any neighborly solution after that.

 

[Navvet]

As far as the driveway goes, consider fencing, or rocks or .... Claymores.

I vote for Claymores :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[bcp]

You could put up an honest sign, with large and small print.

Bruce

 

[BoylermanCT]

At the rate of over 120k a year I壇 guess the IRS is already getting their cut.

Air BnB does all the tax reporting for you, so yes, the IRS gets their cut!

 

[Oldoak]

Air BnB does all the tax reporting for you, so yes, the IRS gets their cut!

I would hope so. The rest of us pay the price for all the tax cheaters.

 

[EddieWalker]

I have no idea of what the law is in Washington, so my first course of action would be to take all the paperwork on your land to a real estate lawyer and have them decipher what the easement says. Until you know that, there is no point in doing anything else.

Here in Texas, I've worked for clients that had easements to get to their homes, and clients that had easements across their place to get to homes behind them. In every case, it's a problem. Some have gone hostile and sabotaged the road to make it as bad as possible to get through. In one case, they cause the people renting the house to move out and the landlord lowering the rent to the point that some crackheads moved in. At another place, they culverts where removed. Mother Nature was blamed for this, but I don't believe she had anything to do with it. And at another place, the road was so word down by lack up maintenance that the water lines from the street where exposed and damaged. The guy at the end of the road tried to blame everyone else on the road for destroying his water lines, but when he tried to sue to have the other home owners pay for it, nothing happened because they said that the lawyer was bluffing and there was nothing in the easement that covered that. And his refusal to pay his share of costs to maintain the road invalidated the easement.

Back in CA, a friend had some land that was land locked by a State Park. He had two easements through the Park to get to his land. His easement was rock solid, but they wanted him to sell them his land, so they started harassing him and everyone that used the easement. They would send Park Rangers to sit at the gate and block it, and then refuse to allow anybody through it. We took pictures of them and he sued the park for a significant sum, and won. Then they changed the road through the park and said that the easement didn't allow anybody to use the new road, so he sued and won, forcing them to fix his road and make it accessible for a fire truck to get to his cabin. Then they closed down the road because it interfered with some type of endangered salamander. He sued them again and won because that endangered salamander never existed anywhere near his land and they had lied about it being there. The thing about this guy is that he enjoyed fighting the Park and going to court. Overall, he made money on them. He even built a pond on his land and when they took him to court over building a pond without a permit or environmental study, he claimed that the pond had been there for a hundred years and he was just cleaning it out and repairing the damage to the dam. He won that one too!!!

I have no idea what the solution is for your easement issues, but just wanted to share with you some things that I've encountered. Hopefully you can resolve this quickly and cheaply. If not, look for loopholes in the easement that you can use to cancel it, or force them to pay for damages that will make it financially impossible to continue renting the place out. And if they don't pay, allow you to file a lean on the land with ridiculous interest rates.

Good luck.

 

[4570Man]

I would hope so. The rest of us pay the price for all the tax cheaters.

So how does rather or not this guy pays taxes on his house rental affect you?

 

[dieselcrawler]

First off, talk to the landowner, in person and on site if possible. Keep it neighborly, its the right thing to do. The last thing you want to do is ruin a possibly good relationship with the landowner by having the first glimpse of this issue come to their attention in a letter signed by a lawyer. I've been thru this, a good relationship with a long term family friend has soured to a certin degree. Talk to them!

Look up the details of the easement, know what is and is not permitted. The new owner may have no clue its not a 'public' road, and that restrictions may exist. No harm in doing this research first. You may end up surprised yourself.

Keep it civil as long as possible. When it goes sour, Friday afternoon when the traffic starts might be a good time to start that new 4' culvert ditch, oops, outta fuel, cant finish it this weekend, sorry your car is stuck on the wrong side come Monday morning!

 

[dmottv]

I bought this property 4 years ago. There is a easement allowed up our driveway and beyond to a cabin.
The cabin just recently sold and the owners turned it into a rental, listed it on AirBNB.
It now is relisted as a year around Lodge.
I have gone from a car or two once in a while going by to 6-10 cars on some days.
My gate is being left open, cars driving on my lawn.
People coming to our house after dark looking for the cabin they just rented

Anyone ever run into a BNB Rental Lodge problem?

The bottom line is that you are in negotiation with an absentee owner of investment rental property. A good attorney who can review the easement language, the applicable zoning and site regulations, and develop a plan to leverage the issue in your best interest, is the best way to move this problem forward.

I have seen physical altercations, property damage, spite fences, odorous animals and junk vehicles used to ascerbate similar situations, many times moving the situation into the legal arena. Hiring a good attorney to begin with is a good move to best protect yourself.